Sing it loud, Sing it proud!

 

A confession

My name is Mike and I am a baritone.

Lest you think you’ve wandered into a 12-step meeting for recovering shower singers, let me explain.

Baritones are the Mookie Wilson of the music world. (New York Mets fans will get this.) None of the glamour or recognition of the swooping aria sopranos like Maria Callas. No wall-vibrating bass a la James Earl Jones. (“Luke, I am your father!!!”) No sky-scraping tenor ring-outs like Luciano Pavarotti. (End the note, Lucky, you’ll hurt yourself!)

Just a pleasant, mid lower range, sing-the well-marked-harmony parts-baritone. Even altos exude more glamour.

I have always sung. Loudly. In my car to the radio or mp3 player. On the stage in community theater musicals. In inappropriate settings like the soup aisle of the supermarket. And, (sigh) yes, in the shower. Soap on a rope can be easily adapted into a fantasy microphone. And you should see me dance a dripping Nae Nae.

My earliest memories are as an eight-year-old warbler. I think I caught the bug after winning a $25 savings bond at the Bandon, Oregon Cranberry Festival talent show with my unforgettable rendition of “I’m a little teapot, short and stout.” 

Of course, my roly-poly build provided an vivid visual aid that really sold the lyrics. Later in my career (as a nine- and ten-year old), I sang folk music with my teenaged sister and her friend. In those days I was a soprano, of course. I had to retire when the two of them cruelly insinuated I was “screeching.” That prolonged high E above high F is a bear to maintain.  

 

These days I croon with the Clark College community choir. Not to be confused with the Clark College concert choir which involves people who can actually carry a tune. A mix of students, older people and homeless folks who wandered in off the street, we’re working on holiday tunes with lovely harmonies and uplifting lyrics. My personal favorites are Bach Cantata 61 (far superior to Bach Cantatas 59 and 60), Music in The Night (which we perform with our eyes squeezed tightly shut) and the song that was number one on the Vatican radio station for 17 straight weeks, Verbum Caro Factum Est. Which loosely translated means “God will get you for that.”

 All kidding aside, I’m really enjoying reaching for those magic chords with my other choir members. When we hit the perfect harmony, little bitty fun bumps break out all over my body. It’s a transcendent moment. I have no idea what that means but it’s my word-of-the-day challenge so I had to work it in.

 We had a perfect choir moment at our last rehearsal. One older gentleman stood up and asked us for a favor. “My grandson is turning nine today. If I get him on the phone,” he said, waving his cell around, “could we all sing happy birthday to him?” Who’s going to turn down a request like that? You risk inclusion in the hard-hearted hall of fame if  you do. He punched in the numbers and got his daughter to put grandkid on the line.

 “Jason.” (Disclosure: not his real name. You never know when there’s a lawyer lurking.) “I’m here with some friends and they want to wish you a happy birthday.” After setting the phone down he gave us the high sign and we launched a slightly quavery version of that well-loved American classic. I’m pretty sure several of us struggled to remember the lyrics. When we finished, proud grandfather picked up the phone.

 “So, what did you think?” he asked Jason. (Still not his real name.) “Wasn’t that special?” He listened for a moment, nodded his head, and then ended the call. Very honestly, he looked a little glum.

 “So what did Jason (Still . . . oh, never mind) think?” One of the sopranos asked the grumpy gramps.

 “He said I interrupted his game of prancing pteradacyls on his cell phone.”

 “Nonsense!” exclaimed one of the altos. “It was a moment he’ll remember forever.”

 “Yeah,” mumbled the official choir curmudgeon. “If the therapy proves to be unsuccessful.” Everyone cast stink eyes at me.  

 All in all, my experience with the choir has been rewarding. Under the direction of Doctor Funk (I’m not making this up. His name is Jacob Funk), we’re preparing for two performances in early December. He’s knowledgeable, inspirational and highly supportive. He even reassured me that my reach for the higher notes in the baritone range were not bordering on falsetto. Even though I sometimes feel like I’m on the verge of launching into the intro to The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

 With any luck we’ll negotiate the Verbum, the Bach (to pronounce correctly pretend you’re a cat trying to expel an especially pernicious furball) and the other wonderful music we’ve been practicing. I’m hoping for a full house, perfect harmony, and no life-threatening injuries.

 

 

Designer Water? Really?

Carolyn J. Rose

When I gaze at the hundreds of plastic bottles of water in convenience store coolers, I can almost hear my grandparents exclaiming with a mix of disbelief, dismay, and even disgust.
These were people who came through the Great Depression with tight budgets and tightened belts. They repaired and recycled, made their clothing last or made it into quilts or rag rugs. They planted gardens and preserved food, kept cows and raised chickens for Sunday dinners. They drank water from mountain springs and carried it with them in jugs and canteens.

I doubt they could have imagined that one day people would shell out for water shipped from Iceland or remote islands, from mountaintops or beneath volcanoes, from mineral springs or glacial streams.

If I could go back in time and tell them about the trends to come, I bet they’d laugh and ask who the heck would be crazy enough to pay hard-earned money for those things. They might mention—as they often did—that I shouldn’t let my imagination run away with me. They might even ask whether people in the future would pay for jeans riddled with holes or shoes that cost more than a thousand dollars. And if I told them that would happen, they’d again exclaim with disbelief, dismay, and even disgust.

On the other hand, if I could go back and explain about phones without cords, electric cars, solar power, portable computers, or letters you could write and send with a tap of a button, I think they’d see the value.
But would they “get” designer water?
Nope.

 

Turning up the Heat

 

Carolyn J. Rose

Many chilly mornings, as I tap the thermostat up several degrees while making my way toward the source of that stimulating liquid known as coffee, I hear the sound of a hatchet chopping kindling. 

I know that’s my imagination dredging up an auditory memory from 70 years ago. But there are days when the sound causes my feet to shuffle right or left to avoid the square metal grid once centered in the hallway of the house I grew up in.

If the sound of chopping was accompanied by a string of curses, I’d know the fire had nearly died out overnight and there was no danger my bare feet would be scorched by a wave of heat rising from the cellar.

 Wider awake, I would jump the grid when the furnace was roaring. But I remember very few childhood mornings, aside from Christmas and the first day of summer vacation, when sleep wasn’t like a snug hand-be-down snowsuit: difficult to shrug off.

During my teen years that old furnace was replaced by an oil-burning model and the grid was replaced by baseboard vents. The magic of central heating was controlled by a round thermostat that could be twisted right and left. And twist it we did, setting it too low for anyone not dressed for the Yukon, or too high for those fearing a whopping heating oil bill.

I never saw a thermostat in any of my college dorms. With all the drama that came with crowding so many young people into well-designed but tight spaces, I suspect someone in charge wisely decided to eliminate this potential source of conflict.

When I joined VISTA and was sent to Arkansas, I became familiar with free-standing natural gas heaters and their dangers. 

Yes, with a twist of a handle and the scrape of a match, they quickly put out significant amounts of heat. But they weren’t ventilated and they lacked safety mechanisms to automatically stop the flow of gas. Occasionally we heard news alerts about the possibility of gas pressure dropping low enough for the flame to gutter and go out. The thought of gas filling the house while we slept made for a tough choice between stressing or shivering.

A move to Albuquerque reunited me with floor furnaces. The grids were hard on bare feet, but leaning over them to dry my hair gave me rosy cheeks and that windblown look. Then came Eugene and electric wall heaters with fans that rattled in their frames and sent heat drifting up the walls to the ceiling where it hovered for hours while my nose grew numb and my toes frosted over.

Now we have central heat again. It clicks on in seconds and warms the house in minutes. It’s quiet and clean and efficient. But there are days I wish I could go back in time. I wish I could hear that hatchet and listen to my father turning up the heat on the language.

 

Halloween Rant

 

Carolyn J. Rose

 

Be afraid. Be very afraid. It’s that frightening time of year again.

Yes, it’s the season when political signs flourish and the time when pumpkin spice turns up in all manner of food and drink.

And if that’s not scary enough, this is when enthusiastic celebrations of October 31^st sometimes go over the top.

Yards fill with with scarecrows, skeletons, witches, werewolves, bats, ghouls, goblins, giant spiders, and wads of white webbing. It’s the time when inflated creepy clowns and dinosaurs prowl lawns.

 

And then there are sound effect: howls and moans, grunts and groans, shrieks and screams. Banshees could take lessons.

Things have definitely changed since I was a kid. Back then, decorating was about cutting out a few construction paper ghosts or bats or spiders to stick on the windows. It was about carving a few gap-toothed pumpkins you grew yourself or bought from a local farm or store. That was followed by a search of the junk drawer for candle stubs to light the grinning orange globes on Halloween.

Total cost for the entire display back in the day: Not much.

Total expected to be spent on displays in the U.S. this year? More than 3 Billion bucks!

And consider this. Plastic makes up a huge percentage of those lawn displays. (How much? I'll let you do the research.) 

And while you’re doing that, find the answers to these questions: Can that plastic be recycled? Can it go to the compost heap like those pumpkins did? Or do those yard displays eventually wind up in a landfill?

 I’m not one of those curmudgeons opposed to change in general. But I have concerns about change that’s “good” for the economy isn’t so good for the environment.

I’ll Take a Large Order of Scotland. But Hold the Haggis.

Carolyn J. Rose

 

Thanks to the movement of tectonic plates in the Great Glen, the advance and retreat of glaciers, and the endless work of wind and water, the Scottish Highlands are a magnet for geologists as well as tourists. Set the science and scenery to music courtesy of a piper playing on the roadside, and the experience is unique.

The last time we were in Scotland, twelve years ago, I had only one close encounter with haggis and that was at a “Scottish Evening.” That tourist-geared event featured pipers, dancers, and sample plates of haggis, neeps, and tatties. This time, haggis seemed to be everywhere: on the breakfast buffet, as a stuffing for chicken breast, as a pizza topping, and a potato-chip flavoring.

I can’t digest red meat, so I had a sound reason to pass, and plenty of other culinary creations on the menu. (A shout out to the NorthLink Ferry from Scrabster to Stromness where I had some of the best mac and cheese EVER!)

 

Scotland has some pretty comprehensive nutritional standards, so I found less sugar and salt in many commercially made foods. Cheetos, those crunchy, cheesy curls didn’t taste the same. (Note: this will be important later.)

 

My 77^th birthday kicked off with a visit to Dunrobin Castle. 

By this time we were a little crispy (as in not quite burnt out, but getting there) when it came to castle interiors, so we strolled the grounds. Being a gardener, I appreciated all the hard work that went into maintaining the grounds. Not having to do that work made the experience even more enjoyable.

 

I’d brought along a guide to birds of the UK, but except for a hooded crow, most birds I spotted were too far off or too fast for me to identify with any certainty. 

The crow had a taste for the granola bar I was gnawing on and hung around until the crumbs were gone.

 

In Dornoch, we browsed a bookshop, bought a mystery by a local author, marveled at the huge mural in Greens Restaurant.

(Can you find Madonna and Guy Ritchie?) After ogling the mural, we treated ourselves to yet another scone. And, yeah, I slathered on butter. Plenty of butter. After all, we had a long bus ride to Scrabster to catch the ferry to the Orkneys. And, at the time, I had no idea mac and cheese would be served on board.

 

The next morning we woke up at the Ayre Hotel in Kirkwall, gobbled our way through another massive display of choices on the breakfast buffet (croissants and more butter!) and headed off into the distant past.

 

But first, a few wonderful dry stone walls and a quick stop to see what you can create with a little imagination and a whole lot of lugging and lifting. (For more information, check out Friends of Stoneworks, Orkney)

\

 

And then another quick stop at an honesty box because, after all, it had been an hour or so since breakfast and it was cool and windy and we required the insulation provided by a brownie or two. And, yes, Mike paid for them. (For the record, I’m sure he would have ponied up even if he hadn’t had an audience.)

We were glad of that insulation and our puffy jackets when we reached Skara Brae where wind whipped off the sea and scoured the headland. 

The Neolithic site, revealed after a storm, seems to have been abandoned just last week instead of thousands of years ago. With a little net surfing you can learn much more about the site and perhaps form your own theory about why the inhabitants departed.

 

And you can do the same kind of research for the Ring of Brodgar, but I’ll tell you now that the stone ring is older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian Pyramids.

 

About half the original stones are still standing. Stark against the sky, they continue to mark off the seasons. 

The Standing Stones of Stenness are believed to be even older. Only a few are still upright, some having toppled to the weight of years and others through the actions of a landowner attempting to discourage trespassers. Fortunately, I wasn’t considered a trespasser and could walk among them and touch them, putting my hands where others had when they were set in place. I won’t go all woo-woo on you, but I will say I felt compelled to keep my hand there for at least a full minute.

 

After Neolithic history, we had a taste of less distant past as we traveled along the sheltered waters of Scapa Flow to the Italian Chapel. Built by prisoners of war, it’s a monument to their beliefs and know-how and creativity.

On the ferry to Stromness, we cruised past the towering sandstone sea stack known as the Old Man of Hoy, 

 

In Stromness, which serves as a gateway to Scotland's most legendary Loch, Mike’s mission was to find a cup of good coffee and mine was to explore the local hardware store. I am, as many of you know, my father’s daughter, and I love to prowl the aisles of a hardware store.

But this is what I came for. If you look past the trebuchet and the ruins of Urquhart Castle, you’ll see Loch Ness. It’s been on my bucket list since I first heard a tale about the cryptid rumored to inhabit its depths. And I had a plan to bring Nessie to the surface and settle the debate once and for all.

 

Unfortunately, that plan depended on a bait no fabled monster could resist—Cheetos. But, as mentioned before, Cheetos acquired in Scotland didn’t have as much kick. But, kicking myself for not bringing superior bait from home, I tried, holding up the bag and silently pleading with Nessie to rise from the dark depths.

 

And perhaps she—or maybe he or maybe they—did. Monster-viewing conditions weren’t prime. The sun emerged as we got underway and the wind picked up, creating waves and whitecaps and splintering reflected light.

 But you can’t say I didn’t try. I squinted and peered as we cruised the length of the loch. Well, except when I was chatting and laughing with MadDog and Wildcat, fellow tourists. If you can’t find a monster, then find friends.

 

Later I consoled myself by watching sheepdogs do their stuff, rounding up a flock and spinning the sheep left and right as the shepherd directed through commands and body language.

 

Meanwhile a hairy cow (to locals, it's pronounced "Horry Coo") named Anita wandered among the members of our tour. She’d been hand-raised and seemed unaware of her size and the damage she could do with those horns.

 

And finally, as we headed back to Edinburgh to prepare for another long day of watching reader boards, trekking along concourses, and cramming into shuttles, we stopped near Falkirk to see the Kelpies. 

These towering sculptures command the horizon and attention. But what are Kelpies? Well, by now you should be good at research, so I’ll let you find that out for yourself. (Mike thought Kelpies were a long- forgotten breakfast cereal.) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Scotland Travelbog

Uh . . . Blog

Or

How we survived the rampant stanchions of Heathrow Field and got on the AFC bus

How we visualized it:  Grab an energizing nap on the red-eye flight from Portland to London, hop off at Heathrow airport, toodle over to our gate to board our plane for the short hop to Edinburgh and arrive bright-eyed and bushy tailed.

The Reality:  AYEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! Two movies, three crossword puzzles,four apologies to our neighbors in the row behind us, and a decent airline meal (a cuisine d’oxymoron) eaten, we did indeed touch down in London nine hours later. Only to find:

We are several miles of hallways and a diabolical series of mazes created by an infinite number of stanchions and belts away from our connection.

We also got another reality check. The gate number for our short hop to Edinburgh wouldn’t be posted until half an hour before the flight. Which meant we had to plop down and keep an eye on the reader board. Luckily the professional conversationalist of our team (right, Carolyn) found a customer service representative and wheedled the information out of him early. We arrived in plenty of time to hop on a bus to an entirely different terminal and scramble aboard the plane.

After being overcharged for the cab ride to the Edinburgh hotel we went comatose for ten hours and, after breakfast, grabbed a cab to catch a train to Glasgow, where we’d join our tour group. This cabbie was honest (informed us we’d been ripped off by the airport taxi driver) and helpful. Armed with his advice we hopped on a commuter train and settled in to watch the Scottish countryside whiz past us. 

Personally, this was one of my favorite parts of the trip. As you may know, one of the Nettleton-Rose travel rules is that Mike gets a train ride and a boat ride on every vacation. Since this was a commuter train, we stopped at eight or nine quaint little stations for people to get on and get off. At the terminals there were helpful signs such as these.

Farther than “far out!!!” Waaaaay Out! Groovy, man. This was our first exposure to the different road signage in Scotland. We would have said “exit.” Of course it’s always useful to know a “way out.” Especially if trapped in a room with Donald Trump and J.D. Vance.

What else did we see along the way?

Sheep. More sheep than I will see for 

the entire rest of my lifetime. It's baaaaa'd you know.

As if by magic, it’s Friday and we’re enjoying walking the streets of Glasgow. We discover a Tesco (treats!!), several charity thrift stores, and our favorite restaurant of the trip: Café Antipasti.

We share several small plates and one has a red sauce that Carolyn claimed was among the best ever.

On Saturday we joined the tour group for a walk-through of St. Mungo’s Church.

Inside was every bit as garish as some of the stately homes.

St. Mungo is Glasgow’s patron saint and the prevailing honorary saint of legumes. That evening we had dinner with the tour group. (Lovely folks) We met Ken and Heather who became constant companions.

On Sunday the bus took us to The Isle of Bute and the stately home known as the Mount Stuart House. 

Proving again that nothing succeeds like excess, this tribute to the obscenely wealthy thumbs its nose at  peasants scrabbling for the last turnip in the garden. Me, cynical? Hell, no.

Monday takes us to the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond. I'm pretty sure Rob, our fearless bus driver took the high road. 

In the afternoon we move on to Eilean Donan Castle. This AFC 

is unique because it occupies its own island. 

Speaking of Islands, the next day (Tuesday, for those marking their scorecards) finds us crossing a spectacular bridge to The Isle of Skye. 

Our AFC for the day was called Donvegan. Medieval  and totally free of dairy products and eggs. (Lame Scottish joke 23 in a series of 87. Collect them all.)

In Portree we visited the local chippy for a massive hunk of fish and crispy potato chunks. Portree is a scenic little town. Here are some of the harborside homes.

 We spent Wednesday night at the Gairloch Hotel in (anyone, anyone?) Gairloch.

 Impressive exterior. Tiny bathroom. We toured Inverewe Gardens and donated more pounds and pence to local souvenir vendors.

No trip to Scotland would be complete without seeing at least one of these. 

Yes, that is one hairy cow. Or, as the Scots so cleverly say it a "hairy coo." Officially it's a Highland Cow. Fred, to his friends.

Whew!!! I'm exhausted from revisiting the first half of our trip to Scotland. Carolyn will be along to narrate the second part. But first. Dia dhaoibh ar maiding. Which is Gaelic for "I am so outa here". Or possibly just "Hello."

(Clarification. AFC is initialized shorthand for "Another Feckin' Castle.")